Association of periodontal disease and diabetic retinopathy

Abstract

The main problem of type II diabetes is that excessive levels of glucose in the blood damage the vascular endothelium causing complications, such as periodontal disease (PD) that, in people with diabetes, can compromise the patient's ability to maintain normal function. adequate metabolic control. Therefore, it is important to analyse the effect of PD status on complications in patients with type II diabetes; Previous studies have reported that there is a bidirectional relationship between PD and diabetic complications, but it has not been clarified whether PD affects the presence of complications such as diabetic retinopathy (DR). DR is a microvascular complication and is considered the main cause of visual loss worldwide, similarly, periodontitis is a microvascular chronic inflammatory condition that compromises the dental support tissues. This article was prepared as an update for health professionals and also to analyse PE and how it is related to the presence of DR. Based on the literature, we can conclude that the number of teeth is an independent risk factor for DR, greater bleeding on probing could affect the presence of DR, and that patients with DR seem to show greater susceptibility to PD. The bibliography also mentions that more studies should be carried out with large samples, adequate models that adjust confounding variables such as obesity, hypertension, other chronic-degenerative diseases, use of substances such as alcohol or cigarettes, also carrying out prospective analyses of the conditions of periodontitis and DR.